What Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Sunday does not behove a politician aspiring to be a national leader. Pointing out what he considered to be a common cause between the Taliban and his own party, he said both had opposed Musharraf. And since the party is in the driving seat in Punjab, the Taliban should desist from targeting the province.
Again, like the Taliban, his party was also opposed to the policies being followed by the US. Musharraf "planned a bloodbath of innocent Muslims at the behest of others only to prolong his rule, but we in the PML-N opposed his policies and rejected dictation from abroad and if the Taliban are also fighting for the same cause, then they should not carry out acts of terror in Punjab."
Maintaining that despite being in power in Punjab, his party does not accept dictation from abroad, he cited the example of the stand taken by the party on the Kerry-Lugar bill which, according to him, compromised the sovereignty, integrity and survival of the country.
The PML-N still had some reservations over the law, he said. What Shahbaz said was plain and unambiguous and there is no sense in attempts being made to give it a different meaning from what it clearly implies. The remarks were all the more out of place because these were made at a seminar to commemorate a well-known religious scholar of Lahore who was slain by the Taliban, last year because he consistently opposed their acts of terrorism, particularly suicide bombings, as being against the Islamic injunctions.
What the statement implies is that Shahbaz would not mind if the Taliban kill, injure and maim thousands of innocent citizens in provinces not ruled by the PML-N? Is Punjab first and Pakistan second in his priorities? According to Shahbaz, extremism and terrorism were the result of the wrong policies followed by the Musharraf regime. The statement is no more than a half-truth.
There is no doubt that some of the steps taken by Musharraf after becoming a US ally in the war against terror, contributed to the spread of extremism and terrorism, which he tried to control while simultaneously protecting a number of terrorist networks to remain in power.
Shahbaz conveniently forgets that the PML-N patron, General Ziaul Haq was the man who used the country's security agencies to recruit, train, arm and unleash terrorist groups to seek Washington's support for his military regime. It was during the Zia era that armed sectarian groups emerged and started playing havoc in the country.
It was under Zia when seminaries got radicalised as a result of the infusion of huge doses of aid from the Middle East. There was no attempt to regulate the seminaries or stop the extension of the Gulf rivalries in the country, which took a sectarian form with the result that Pakistan turned into a battlefield for a proxy war.
Throughout 1988-1999, when the US had no physical presence in Afghanistan, armed sectarian groups conducted horrendous attacks inside Pakistan, tossing bombs inside mosques and Imambargahs, killing leaders of opposing sects, and hundreds of innocent people in the process.
Sufi Mohammad's Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi blocked Swat roads, forced people to stop playing audio cassettes in their vehicles, attacked peaceful citizens, abducted a lawmaker and killed another long before Musharraf was anywhere near the political scene.
The remarks would disappoint those who maintained that the PML-N has emerged wiser by learning from its past mistakes, and wanted the old chapter of the party's links with Zia and jihadi elements to be permanently severed. Talking about a common agenda with the Taliban would indicate to many that the mindset that led Nawaz Sharif to assume the mantle and dictatorial powers of an Amir-ul-Momineen through a constitutional fiat has yet to change.
Shahbaz's statement would lead many to believe that the party's hobnobbing with the leaders of a banned outfit during the by-elections in Jhang too, was indicative of a soft corner towards the extremists. The statement would evoke a particularly negative reaction from the smaller provinces where the PML-N has been trying to create roots. What is needed on the part of the party leadership, at the highest level, is to state its position regarding the Taliban, who continue to be on the rampage, not only in Punjab, but across the country.
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